Repair - Modding - Restore

 

The history of the iphone began with Steve Jobs' direction that Apple engineers investigate touch-screens. At the time he had been considering having Apple work on tablet PCs. Many have noted the device's similarities to Apple's previous touch-screen portable device, the Newton MessagePad.Like the Newton, the iPhone is nearly all screen. Its form factor is credited to Apple's head of design, Jonathan Ive.

Genesis
Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone in January 2007.
Comments made by Jobs in April 2003 at the "D: All Things Digital" executive conference expressed his belief that tablet PCs and traditional PDAs were not good choices as high-demand markets for Apple to enter, despite many requests made to him that Apple create another PDA. He did believe that cell phones were going to become important devices for portable information access, and that what cell phones needed to have was excellent synchronization software. At the time, instead of focusing on a follow-up to their Newton PDA, Jobs had Apple put its energies into the iPod, and the iTunes software (which can be used to synchronize content with iPod devices), released January 2001. On September 7, 2005, Apple and Motorola released the ROKR E1, the first mobile phone to use iTunes. Jobs was unhappy with the ROKR, feeling that having to compromise with a non-Apple designer (Motorola) prevented Apple from designing the phone they wanted to make. In September 2006, Apple discontinued support for the ROKR and released a version of iTunes that included references to an as-yet unknown mobile phone that could display pictures and video. On January 9, 2007, Jobs announced the iPhone at the Macworld convention, receiving substantial media attention, and on June 11, 2007 announced at the Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference that the iPhone would support third-party applications using the Safari engine on the device. Third-parties would create the Web 2.0 applications and users would access them via the internet. Such applications appeared even before the release of the iPhone; the first being "OneTrip", a program meant to keep track of the user's shopping list. On June 29, 2007, Apple released version 7.3 of iTunes to coincide with the release of the iPhone. This release contains support for iPhone service activation and syncing.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the iPhone is manufactured on contract in the Shenzhen factory of the Taiwanese company Hon Hai.

Advertising
The first advertisement for iPhone, titled "Hello," aired during the 79th Academy Awards on February 25, 2007 on ABC. The ad features clips from several notable films and television shows over the last seventy years, showing iconic characters answering telephones and saying "hello" or a similar greeting. The iPhone is shown at the end with the caption "Hello. Coming in June."

The commercial was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day, Apple's ad agency since CEO Steve Jobs' return to the company in 1997. TBWA's Media Arts Lab will continue to handle all upcoming advertising for iPhone, much as it has for iPod.

On June 3, 2007, Apple released four advertisements that announce a June 29, 2007 release date, and which concluded, "Use requires minimum new 2 year activation plan."; the footnote has since been removed from all four of the ads. A fifth ad featuring YouTube was released on June 21, 2007. All five advertisements feature a voice over describing various iPhone features, demonstrated on-screen. The song "Perfect Timing (This Morning)" by Orba Squara plays in the background.

Domain name
On July 1, 2007, it was reported that Apple paid at least US$1 million to Michael Kovatch for the transfer of the iphone.com domain name. Kovatch registered the domain in 1995. That URL now redirects to Apple's iPhone page.
U.S. release

People waiting in line for the iPhone release in New York City.
On June 28, 2007, during an address to Apple employees, Steve Jobs announced that all full-time Apple employees and those part-time employees that have been with the company at least one year would receive a free iPhone. Employees received their phones in July after the initial demand subsided.

On June 29, 2007, Apple closed its stores during the hours between 2:00 and 6:00 PM local time to prepare for the iPhone launch. Meanwhile, hundreds of customers lined up at stores nationwide until each store re-opened their doors to sell the first devices.
There were some concerns with service and plans provided by AT&T. The iPhone is only available for those who subscribe to a two-year AT&T service plan unless they have poor credit, in which case they can use a pre-paid plan. There is no way to opt out of the data plan and thus people who do not want to use the iPhone's web capability may find the fee superfluous. The iPhone cannot be added to an AT&T Business account, and any existing business account discounts cannot be applied to an iPhone AT&T account. One report stated that the iPhone could not be added to an existing AT&T consumer account if it had been ported from Cingular at the time of the BellSouth-AT&T merger. This has since been corrected.

The Associated Press reported also that some users were unable to activate their phones due to what AT&T reported was "high volume of activation requests were taxing the company's computer servers."

Early estimates by technology analysts estimated sales of between 250,000 to 700,000 units in the first weekend alone, with strong sales continuing after the initial weekend. As part of their quarterly earnings announcement, AT&T reported that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first weekend. Though this figure does not include units that were purchased for resale on eBay or otherwise not activated until after the opening weekend, it is still less than most initial estimates. It is also estimated that 95% of the units sold are the 8 GB model.

Outsized bills
Stories of unexpected billing issues began to circulate in blogs and the technical press a little more than a month after the iPhone's heavily advertised and anticipated release. The 300-page iPhone bill in a box received by Justine Ezarik on Saturday August 11, 2007 became the subject of her viral video, posted by the following Monday, which quickly became an Internet meme. This video clip brought the voluminous bills to the attention of the mass media. Ten days later, after the video had been viewed more than 3 million times on the Internet, and had received international news coverage, AT&T sent iPhone users a text message outlining changes in its billing practices.

Price drop controversy
On September 5, 2007, the 4 GB model was discontinued, and the 8 GB model price reduced to US$399. Those who had purchased an iPhone in the 14-day period before the September 5, 2007 announcement were eligible for a US$200 "price protection" rebate from Apple or AT&T. However, it was widely reported that some who bought between the June 29, 2007 launch and the August 22, 2007 price protection kick-in date complained that this was a larger-than-normal price drop for such a relatively short period and accused Apple of unfair pricing. In response to the controversy, on September 6, 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote in an open letter to iPhone customers that everyone who purchased an iPhone at the higher price "and who is not receiving a rebate or other consideration", would receive a US$100 credit to be redeemed towards the purchase of any product sold in Apple's retail or online stores.

On September 24, 2007, one disgruntled customer filed a lawsuit against Apple, Steve Jobs, and AT&T over the price cut, citing price discrimination, underselling, discrimination in rebates, deceptive actions, and other wrongdoings.
Activation and SIM lock bypassing

Free iPhone Unlocking
The iPhone normally prevents access to its media player and web features unless it has also been activated as a phone through AT&T. On July 3, 2007, Jon Lech Johansen reported on his blog that he had successfully bypassed this requirement and unlocked the iPhone's other features with a combination of custom software and modification of the iTunes binary. He published the software and offsets for others to use.

On August 14, 2007, Gizmodo reported verification of a method to bypass the iPhone's SIM lock, allowing the phone to work freely with carriers other than AT&T. This method requires a Turbo SIM card costing approximately US$80 and essentially tricks the iPhone into believing that it is operating on the AT&T network even when it is connected natively (not in roaming mode) to another carrier. Australian Personal Computer later published a 10 step guide to unlocking the iPhone using the Turbo SIM method.

In mid-August, UniquePhones announced an unlocking service for the iPhone, only to retract this service the following week after receiving a phone call from a lawyer representing AT&T.

On August 24, 2007, George Hotz, a 17 year old hacker from Glen Rock, New Jersey, broke the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to AT&T's Wireless Network. He confirmed that he unlocked the phone and was using it on T-Mobile's Network. The hack opened up a realm of possibilities for overseas customers because the iPhone was only sold in the U.S at the time. By unlocking it, Hotz opened up the phone to all kinds of phone networks across the world. Hotz posted the hack on his blog. The process is complicated and requires both disassembling the iPhone and executing software commands on a personal computer. Hotz, along with four others across the world, reportedly spent about 500 hours to unlock the phone.

Also, on August 24, 2007, Engadget reported, by way of photos and a video clip, that they were called by the "iPhoneSimFree" team to view a demonstration of unlocking the iPhone using a software only solution. Unlike Hotz's hardware hack, the code in this hack has not been made available to the general public. Sales of the unlock started on September 10, by way of several resellers who were able to order "keys" from iPhoneSimFree which are then passed onto the customer to use the software.

After only one full day of sales, early on September 11 the iPhoneDevTeam announced that they had also created a working "software unlock", and released it to the public for free. Utilizing the existing unlock requires some technical knowledge, although a GUI-based version was under construction. Two free, GUI-based unlocking programs which have been made available are AnySim and iUnlock Reloaded.

On 24 September 2007 Apple issued a warning that future updates could render unlocked iPhones unusable. On 27 September 2007, owners of unlocked iPhones who took advantage of the version 1.1.1 update through iTunes reported that the update rendered the device virtually inoperable. There have also been reports that the update even affected some iPhones that were not unlocked. Engadget found that the firmware update had bricked just as many unhacked iPhones than it did hacked iPhones (including unlocked iPhones). The firmware update relocks iPhones, but in October 11 the iPhoneSIMFree announced that they have hacked the 1.1.1 iPhone update, not only unlocking them but also unbricking the iPhones which where bricked by the update.

On October 16, 2007, the iPhone Dev Team released AnySIM 1.1, the free utility that unlocks iPhones. The updated version works on firmware version 1.1.1, but doesn't fix baseband problems caused by updating an unlocked 1.0.2 phone up to 1.1.1.
On October 23, 2007, the iPhone Elite Dev-Team released Revirginizing Tool to rebuild the lock table in the seczone area to repair the damage done by the original anySIM 1.0x unlockers so unlocked 1.0.2 iPhones can upgrade to 1.1.1 without bricking the iPhone. The tool is unbricking the previously bricked iPhones.

On November 21, 2007 T-Mobile announced that due to litigation commenced against them by their competitor Vodafone, which resulted in a preliminary injunction preventing T-Mobile from locking the SIM card to T-Mobile in Germany. It will sell the phone "unlocked" and will offer the iPhone without a T-Mobile contract for 999 euros ($1,478) at its shops to customers in Germany until the court renders a decision.

European release
On November 9, 2007, iPhone was officially launched in Europe. In Germany it is offered through Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile division, while in the UK sales are going through the UK O2 unit of Telefonica. Similar to the previous launch in U.S. customers lined up as much as a day in advance to get hold of the much anticipated phone.
However, the initial operating model locking iPhone owners to one selected carrier have been controversial in Europe. In Germany, a competing operator, Vodafone, brought the case for court claiming that the arrangement was against German law. On November 20, 2007, an interim court order resulted in the locked iPhone sales in Germany to be temporarily stopped.

It is currently unclear how this situation will continue to develop in Europe. The iPhone launch in France a few weeks later through the operator Orange, facing the same legal issues. Other countries that will pose the same problems for the locked iPhone business model include Belgium, Italy, Finland and Brazil.

On December 1, 2007, Tusmobil, Slovenian mobile operator, started selling "unlocked" iPhones without official contract with Apple, offer caused a lot of confusion with Apple Europe, local media and local Apple representatives.